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As I wrote in my last blog post, there was a chance coming into San Francisco that either the Giants or the Royals could win the World Series, should they be able to sweep the other team in the three games. But thanks to a sole win by the Royals, the series is forced back to Kansas City with the Giants up three games to two.

But a lot took place to get to this point.

After a couple of blowout games in game one and game two of the World Series, game three was a lot more competitive. Jeremy Guthrie received the start for the Royals, and despite the fact that he hasn’t been overly dominant this season, he was terrific in this game. His opposition, Tim Hudson, was fantastic as well, as although he allowed a run in the very first inning via a Lorenzo Cain RBI-groundout, Hudson settled down and posted zeroes for the following four innings.

When the sixth inning arrived, both teams found their strokes, with the Royals and Giants each scoring a couple of runs off of a few timely hits in their respective half inning to take the score up to 3-2 in favor of the Royals. With their bullpen set to go for the rest of the game, the Royals were able to hang onto that one run lead, with Greg Holland closing out the game.

Up two games to one heading into game four, the Giants would now have to win at least one of the two games remaining in San Francisco to keep their chances alive and send the Fall Classic back to Kauffman Stadium.

Game four began the way the Giants envisioned, with them scoring a run in the bottom of the first off of the Royals’ starter, Jason Vargas. But the Royals would answer back in a huge way in the top of the third, when a 30-minute inning saw four runs posted by Kansas City. Although the Giants scored a run of their own in the bottom half of the inning, the overall momentum of the game seemed to be on the Royals’ side.

However, the momentum shifted in the fifth inning, when the Giants scored a couple of runs to tie the game at four runs apiece on a Hunter Pence RBI-single. From there, they would never look back. Scoring three runs in the bottom of the sixth and another four runs in the bottom of the seventh — nine total runs over the course of three innings — the Giants quickly put the game out of reach for the Royals. Both the Giants and Royals would post zeroes for the remainder of the game, ending with a decisive 11-4 win for the Giants.

Now that the series was tied at two games per team, there was guaranteed to be at least one game back in Kansas City. But with the winner of game five moving to within just one win of a World Series title, with two chances to secure that win, you knew Sunday’s game was going to be a close, extremely important matchup.

A rematch of game one’s starters — James Shields for the Royals and Madison Bumgarner for the Giants — everyone expected Shields to rebound from the poor outing he had in game one, and looked to Bumgarner to see if he could continue his postseason masterfulness. Both turned out to be great.

Allowing just two runs in his outing, Shields put the Royals in a good position to win the game. However, Bumgarner had other plans. Giving the Giants nine solid innings, Bumgarner threw a complete game shutout against the Royals, lowering his career World Series ERA down to 0.29 — the lowest in MLB history. Although the two runs the Giants posted early in the game (one in the second and one in the fourth) would’ve been enough for the victory, they were able to put another three runs on the board in the eighth inning for good measure, securing the 5-0 victory.

With not a single home run being hit over the course of the trio of games in San Francisco, this becomes the first world series since 1948 to have three straight games without a dinger. With 25 total runs being scored over the three game set at AT&T park, that’s truly hard to believe.

The Giants and Royals travel back to Kansas City following game five, where they will pick up with game six on Tuesday night. With the Giants just one win away from their third World Title in five seasons, it will be interesting to see how each team plays, knowing game six could be it.

The way this World Series has been going, almost anything can happen. Returning to their electric home ballpark, I wouldn’t be too surprised if the Royals pulled out a game six win to send the World Series to a seventh game. But with the Giants firing on all cylinders as of late, things look promising for my prediction of the Giants winning the World Series in six games coming true.

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On a brief, unrelated side note, tragedy struck baseball on Sunday evening.

Cardinals’ up-and-coming mega prospect, Oscar Taveras, was killed, along with his girlfriend, in a car accident down in the Dominican Republic on Sunday. Although his passing has nothing to do with the World Series, I wanted to take a minute to talk about Taveras.

I first heard of Oscar Taveras back in 2011, when he hit .386 over the course of 308 minor league at-bats. As I began to follow his career more closely, I quickly realized why he was held in such high regard, as he had a career season the following year, hitting .321 with 23 home runs and 94 RBI’s in 2012. Battling injuries in 2013, Taveras finally got things going again in 2014, making his Major League debut in May of this season. Living up to the hype, Teveras hit a home run in his very first game in the majors. But unfortunately, that was one of three home runs Taveras will ever have for his career.

Along with millions of others, I was filled with excitement back in May when Oscar Taveras made his MLB debut. I was filled with amazement when he hit a pinch hit home run in the National League Championship Series. And now, following the tragic death of the 22-year-old star, I’m filled with sadness. Gone too soon — Oscar Taveras will be missed. Talent like his doesn’t come along very often.